YAY!!!

[allison]

:elephant:

My dad agreed to letting Dusty come to his house. :shock:But I have to wait until my rats die because he thinks I have too many pets.

:bunnydance::elephant::bunny18:bunnybutt::happybunny::apollo:

Then he went on to say that he never agreed to me letting me keep my rats.(which I rember discusing a long time ago).:faint:After much persuasion he agreed to letting me keep them as long as I keep thier cage emaculately clean. Which isn't going to be easy. But anything to keep them. I will just have to clean them once in the morning and once after school. Dusty will have to live at my mom's till they die though. :bigtears:

:rantMy one rat has a big cancerous tumor that has spread so it is now unoperable and we will have to put her down soon. :cry3The other is just beggining to get a tumor and I'm thinking of rehomeing her because I can't afford to get her surgery and my parents won't pay for it. I already pleaded with them to get it done for Winery but they said no then it was too late. It wasn't even the money. If it was one of my dad's dogs or my mom's cats they wouldn't even consider not getting it done and that would be way more expensive. They just think that they are "just rats" :cry1My dad actually said he didn't want to get it done because he didn't wan her at his house.:thudWhy are they like that?:bangheadThey don't even want me to get a job so I can get it done because they think it will destract me from my school work. I will have to get a summer job next year though because I need to get a savings account so I have money just incase one of my birds or Dusty gets sick. I just hope nothing will happen to them before then. I think my parents would get the medical stuff they would need then I could just pay them back. OkayI'll stop ranting now.:mrsthumper:

-Allison and Dusty-:rose:

 

[Haley]

Allison,

thats great news that your dad is open to dusty coming to live with you at his home. Maybe one idea would be to keep the rats and their cages very clean and neat, and then prove to your dad that you can handle the responsibility.

Once he sees how well you are caring for the rats, ask if maybe Dusty can come for a visit or trail period. Just let him know that you are willing to do whatever it takes to take care of your pets and keep their area clean. Maybe this might convince him that you can handle the animals and your school work,etc.

Im sorry to hear about your rats. I know its frustrating when parents wont help provide necessary veterinary care, many animals die unneccesarily because of this. Maybe you could babysit or something to save up some money in case of emergency vet bills?

I hope it all works out for you, and for Dusty. I know he would be so happy to be with you, and rabbits make for such great study buddies! Good Luck!

-Haley

PS.one idea would be to build dusty an NIC condo with a rat cage on the very top..ive heard of people doing this with guinea pigs...just a thought to cut down on the space the animals occupy

 

[allison]

Thanks, My dad wants to build a rabbit cage with me. I made a plan for one that I really like. It's more like an excersize pen. that is plexi glass all around then on the outside of that is a little white picket fence (so he can't chew on it. and either plexi glass or lamenent flooring on the bottom.There is a little gate so he can come out on his own because he doesn't really like being picked up. Then I'm going to make a hutch type thing out of wood. It's like a dog house kind of, the front is open. I'm thinking it will be 4'x4' or something like that. What do you think? What should the height of the walls be?

 

[MyBabyBunnies]

I'd say do not use plexiglass! It doesn't allow for air flow and can become VERY hot in the summer which could be deadly to the little guy. A sturdy metal wire is a much better choice.

 

[MyBoyHarper]

MyBabyBunnies wrote:

I'd say do not use plexiglass! It doesn't allow for air flow and can become VERY hot in the summer which could be deadly to the little guy. A sturdy metal wire is a much better choice.

:yeahthat

I fully agree with MBB, do NOT use plexiglass. It's like putting a human is a plastic container and setting them outside in the heat. It'll make a greenhouse effect, and overheat the poor little guy, causing heat stress, or worse.

Like MBB said, use wire. Must better, much safer, and has great ventilation.

 

[allison]

Okay, well, it will be inside and the top is open, but I will use wire instead. Here are the plans.

 

[allison]

Hm, I guess I made them too small. At least you can look at it.

 

[Haley]

looks good (from what I can see). It still might be easier (and cheaper) to use NIC grids to build the cage and even the pen area. You can build it 2 or 3 grids high, depending how high dusty can jump, and still leave the top open. For the floor, the coroplast (plastic cardboard) works great!

Honestly, Ive made tons of cages and bought tons of expensive cages and I definitely think NIC is the way to go. I just made my bun one for around 35 dollars total~!

 

[allison]

I know that it might be cheaper and easier but my dad wants to build him a cage together.

 

[nermal71]

You and your dad could design and build a nic cage together. Look through all of the designs posted and decide together what you do and do not want to you. That way you'd get best of both worlds. Dad would be helping and you'd have an easy to care for cage (I'll be buildingone with a 2story for bunny and a 3rd floor closed off for the guinea as soon as materials get here).

 

[allison]

Thank you.

 

[Jess_sully]

Good luck with the new cage A friend of mine built a cage similar to the one you're describing with plexiglass, but she's since changed it. Now she used a wooden frame with wire mesh (you can buy it for cheap at TSC or somewhere like that). They painted the wood with pet-safe paint, and it looks really nice. Very sturdy, too. Just a thought?

Very sorry to hear about your ratties. I had a trio of dumbo rats, and they too got cancer (it happens all too often in rats). Although they had several surgeries to remove the tumors, they kept coming back, and the surgeries and cancer combined were really making the poor guys unhealthy... they could barely eat on their own or do much of anything, so we had to put them to sleep. It was terrible. But, I couldn't handle their suffering anymore. They were only 20 months old too.

 

[allison]

Jess_sully wrote:

Very sorry to hear about your ratties. I had a trio of dumbo rats, and they too got cancer (it happens all too often in rats). Although they had several surgeries to remove the tumors, they kept coming back, and the surgeries and cancer combined were really making the poor guys unhealthy... they could barely eat on their own or do much of anything, so we had to put them to sleep. It was terrible. But, I couldn't handle their suffering anymore. They were only 20 months old too.


I'm sorry to hear about your rats. My girls are 3 1/2 so they've lived a good life. I've heard that some places breed rats for looks and not health. They cross breed and breed old rats. I got mine from the humane society. They were very helpfull, they told me about rats and gave me care sheets about them.